A bipartisan public meeting of negotiators today on a blueprint to fund the government until October 2012 ended on a note of uncertainty as a senior House Democrat warned that still-unsettled environmental policy riders could cost the bill much-needed votes on his side of the aisle.

Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, addressed the rider drama after panel Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) sounded a confident note about the prospects for a deal on all nine remaining spending bills for fiscal 2012.

"The reality is that time is running out and some of the bills are not resolved," Dicks said, citing two bills -- one to fund U.S. EPA and the Interior Department, and another to fund labor and health programs -- as still mired in partisan clashes over riders that restrict Obama administration policymaking. "If there are too many contentious riders, we're going to have a problem with House Democrats."

Rogers, Dicks and their Senate counterparts must file language for an omnibus spending package by Monday in order to have time to tee up votes in both chambers before current federal funding expires on Dec. 16. The GOP's continued pursuit of environmental riders as that deadline looms led two top Democrats last night to predict that EPA and Interior could split off from the sprawling package and operate under their own continuing resolution (CR) (E&E Daily, Dec. 8).

That endgame would likely displease top House Republicans who have staked considerable political capital on the success of a regular-order appropriations process despite the constraints of August's debt-limit deal. But a 10-month CR for EPA appears an acceptable deal for green activists who have fought the House GOP's three dozen environmental riders all year long.

"Continuing to push this out and push this out leads to uncertainty," Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) government affairs director David Goldston told reporters today. "If we're talking about a full-year CR for EPA, with no riders, that's not the worst result."

Of course, whether the Interior-EPA spending bill proves too politically incendiary to corral the bipartisan majority it is likely to need for passage remains to be seen. With accord on overall funding levels for the agencies apparently within reach, the two parties still could settle their differences over the weekend.

Scott Slesinger, NRDC's legislative director, today said allocations set in part by the August debt deal would leave funding levels for a 2012 omnibus bill closer to the Senate's version -- which gave $10.2 billion to Interior and $8.62 billion to EPA -- than the House's, which set Interior at $9.9 billion and EPA at $7.1 billion.

Those dollar amounts reflect a yearlong horizon rather than the 10-month stretch that an omnibus would cover, and even that outcome is subject to change if lawmakers pass a short-term CR for Interior and EPA to continue their battle over environmental riders in February. But Rogers, the appropriations chairman, today signaled that he may have little interest in such a move.

Expressing hope that the omnibus would be "the last 'bus' of the year," the Kentuckian added: "After all, fiscal year 2013 is around the corner."

Among the major EPA policy limits hotly sought by the House GOP are handcuffs on the agency's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, its curbs on toxic emissions from power plants, its industrial boiler regulations and its proposed checks on water pollution from mining operations.

Payroll tax riders

One of the proposed riders still dogging the omnibus debate, restrictions on U.S. EPA rules for industrial boilers, is also hitched to a House GOP plan for extending White House-backed payroll tax cuts that was officially presented to Republican rank-and-file members today.

That House payroll tax bill is also set to include Rep. Lee Terry's (R-Neb.) bill forcing White House approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline between Canada and the Gulf Coast, despite a near-veto threat issued yesterday by President Obama (E&ENews PM, Dec. 7).

"The president says that the American people can't wait on jobs," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters today. "Well, guess what? We agree wholeheartedly with the president. The Keystone pipeline project will create tens of thousands of jobs immediately."

The $7 billion Keystone XL project commands support from conservative Democrats in both chambers, giving Republicans confidence that it can cajole the White House into accepting one of their top energy priorities in exchange for another year of payroll tax cuts that the president views as a big political win.

That payroll tax bill and the omnibus appropriations measure remain Congress' two must-pass proposals before it adjourns for the year. The lingering question marks over energy and environmental proposals linked to both as well as energy tax extenders that could hitch a ride on the payroll tax plan could force both chambers to stay in session until the last days before Christmas.

Senate wild card

As upper-chamber leaders look across the Capitol for a palatable compromise on the payroll tax cuts, which by law must originate in the House, two senators occasionally at odds with party orthodoxy offered a deal that blends a hodgepodge of environmental provisions with the Social Security tax relief.

The bill floated yesterday by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) would extend and expand the payroll tax break as well as the research and development tax credit while offering a $10 billion infusion for state-level infrastructure banks and $800 million for U.S. EPA's state clean water funds.

Also included in the proposal are a slowdown of EPA's Boiler MACT rule, a cost-benefit analysis plan that could impede some of the agency's planned regulations and the phaseout of some tax breaks for major oil companies.

NRDC's Goldston slammed the Boiler MACT provision in the Collins-McCaskill bill and sought to downplay its potential to bridge the congressional chasm, describing it as "a basket of disparate proposals" with the public endorsement of no other senators.

Click here to read a summary of the Collins-McCaskill legislation.